JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Personal blog of Jessica Zafra, author of The Collected Stories and the Twisted series
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Archive for the ‘Announcements’

Twisted, the 25th Anniversary Edition, is now available on Shopee!

October 20, 2021 By: jessicazafra Category: Announcements, Books 2 Comments →

TWISTED, the 25th Anniversary Edition, is available now!

A selection of the most memorable pieces from the first 3 Twisted books, which you lent to friends who never returned them, or lost to Typhoon Ondoy, and couldn’t replace because they’re out of print.

Includes “A Simple Proposal for World Domination”, “The Vulcan Mind and Cheese Meld”, “Basic Icoñography”, that review of Joey Gosiengfiao’s Temptation Island, and coverage of the worst, most inadvertently hilarious Filipino novel we’ve ever read.

With a cover by Bianca Alexandra Ortigas paying tribute to cats and Nirvana. Published by David Jonathan Bayot at DLSU Publishing.

Get your signed copies now on Shopee (Just search “Twisted 25” in the Shopee app). Twisted 25 will soon be available at Mt Cloud Bookshop.

Up next: Limited Edition Twisted 25 notebooks, bookmarks, and gift boxes available exclusively on Shopee.

Join Jessica Zafra’s Writing Boot Camp: Love Stories in August!

July 05, 2021 By: jessicazafra Category: Announcements No Comments →


50% discount if you enroll by 23 July.

Love Stories. Happy, unhappy, factual, imaginary, human, non-human, carnal, platonic, requited, hopeless, eternal, fleeting, genesis, apocalypse.

Sign up for Jessica Zafra’s Writing Boot Camp, which happens over three Saturdays in August (7, 14, and 21) from 3-6pm on Zoom. For inquiries please email saffron.safin@gmail.com, or send us a message here or @jessicazafrascats on Instagram to book your place. Avail of the Early Bird Rate (50% off) if you enroll by July 23.

Participants must be aged 21 and above. No writing experience necessary. People have cried at Writing Boot Camp, but it was because the writing dredged up something inside them and they got emotional, so it was good.

If you’re in the Eastern Standard Time zone (US East Coast, Canada, South America) and would like to join Writing Boot Camp, a separate workshop series is being organized for your area. Please email saffron.safin@gmail.com for details.

“I signed up for Jessica Zafra’s Writing Boot Camp thinking I would discover how to write like her. I still cannot write like her, but I discovered something better: how to write like myself and not give a shit whether anyone else likes my writing.”
– Lord Fernandez, IT professional and mindfulness coach

“I hadn’t written anything in a long time. Then I joined Jessica Zafra’s Writing Boot Camp and now I can’t seem to shut up! As a bonus, the workshop has provided me with a built-in audience who have no choice but to listen to my attempts at stand-up comedy.”
– Will Liangco, physician

“One of the most memorable lessons I learned from Jessica Zafra’s Writing Boot Camp is to avoid trying to write like another person—a habit I’ve long been guilty of. She taught me to embrace my own writing style and process, and not to think too much about the reader if I want the experience to be enjoyable.”
– Johanna Añes, teacher and writer

“Jessica Zafra exterminates writing insecurities. Her workshops are my new pandemic addiction.”
– Dawn Atienza, gallerist

“Jessica Zafra’s classes are called boot camps because they’re brief, fast-paced, and straight to the point. She conducts all her classes promptly and without any fluff. She shares her years of writing and publishing experience generously, and gives you honest, practical feedback about your work. Which is to say, she won’t hesitate to call you out if you’re going off the rails. I don’t usually get my writing out for critique, so I simultaneously crave and fear her opinion. 11/10.”
– Reese Lansangan, singer-songwriter

Get Out Of Here: Travel Stories is our first Writing Boot Camp in 2021

January 03, 2021 By: jessicazafra Category: Announcements, Workshops No Comments →

We can’t travel just yet, but until then we have our stories. Our first Writing Boot Camp for 2021: Travel Stories. Three sessions in February, Saturdays from 3-6pm on Zoom. Early bird rate until January 30: Php5,000. DM @jessicazafrascats or email saffron.safin@gmail.com to book your place

*No writing experience necessary.
**No one has ever had a nervous breakdown at Writing Boot Camp, although there was much therapeutic weeping at the Memoirs workshop last year.
***Gift certificates available if you want to give the workshop to someone for Lunar New Year.

You’re invited to The Age of Umbrage online launch on Saturday, 17 Oct at 7pm

October 13, 2020 By: jessicazafra Category: Announcements, Books No Comments →

Join us at www.facebook.com/mtcloud on Saturday, 17 October at 7pm for the launch of The Age of Umbrage. I will read from my novel and then do a Q&A. Get your books now at Mt Cloud, Shopee, Lazada, and soon at Fully Booked.

My first novel, The Age of Umbrage, is now available at Mt Cloud, Shopee, and Lazada!!!

September 30, 2020 By: jessicazafra Category: Announcements, Books 2 Comments →


There is no acknowledgments section in my new book or it would be longer than the novel (126 pages only). This novel took way too long to come into being, and it would not exist without my friends. Who, being my friends, would prefer not to be mentioned. (If someone announces it loudly, check with me.) Thank you to the friends who hang out with me for no reason, who enjoy our long, pointless meals where we laugh hysterically at things we won’t remember (Well I do, because material), who buy my books and force them on their friends, who know the difference between my written and actual selves, who took an interest in cats just to humor me and have now been colonized. I wrote The Age of Umbrage in 2016, in 3 months (after decades of false starts), so I don’t remember exactly what’s in it, but if you find your name in it or recognize a character as being based on you, remind me!

Published by Ateneo University Press. Cover art by Bianca Alexandra Ortigas.
SRP P295. Buy your copies online at Mt Cloud Bookshop, Shopee, or Lazada. Coming soon to Fully Booked.

Online book launch on 17 October 2020, 7pm at Mt Cloud! Will post invitation.

The Dream of Reason Creates Monsters, vol 1. My historical novella about Rizal and the Ilustrados in Europe.

September 17, 2020 By: jessicazafra Category: Announcements, Books, History No Comments →



P250/issue + shipping. The first issue is out now. Second issue in November, third issue in January, and fourth issue in March. Subscriptions are available. Email saffron.safin@gmail.com or DM @jessicazafrascats.

We donate part of the proceeds to the UP Ikot and Toki drivers, whose livelihood has been affected by the pandemic.